Welcome to the Dollhouse

Winner of the Grand Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, this brutally funny black comedy takes a harrowing look at the hell that is junior high. Heather Matarazzo gives a heart-rending performance as piteous, but resilient Dawn Wiener, or as her relentlessly cruel classmates call her, "Wiener Dog." Subverting Hollywood formula, this is one misfit who does not triumph over her tormentors at school or at home. Only the adult performances and some over-the-top melodramatic plotting ring false, but Matarazzo's Dawn, the quintessential gawky and geeky preteen, reminds us that the only wonder about these years is that we survived them. (K. Lee Benson)